Coming soon - the all new Windsor-Chester-Windsor

[Martin]

is PolePole riding? 

[Basil]

is PolePole riding? 

DNS I think.

[iddu]

Tell me a story, Nanny

[hellymedic]

I did the night control on the last WCW at Marlow.
It was wet.

"Please don't wheel your bike over my sleeping bag."
"I had no idea it was your sleeping bag."

[iddu]

Hurrah - last men standing at Chester (after some minor sightseeing side tours)... 

Night night all

[Tewdric]

I feel for the riders out there in this, if it's as wet where they are as here..

[U.N.Dulates]

Well. it's chucking it down here in Shropshire now (and cold with it). The 6 miles back home from the control was quite enough for us.

[Somnolent]

Barely drizzling @ Windsor.
Kettle is on.

[Somnolent]

Now sunny @ Arrivée

[Somnolent]

First rider home @ 13:01

[Jethro]

So just missing out on a sub 30-hour ride.  Still very impressive.

Looking forward to some great ride reports.

[Philip Whiteman]

Despite the precipitatory onslaught, only one person DNF'd at Belbroughton. The earliest arrivals looked fairly fresh having on suffered light rain.  By the time of the lantern rouge, riders were appearing more beleaguered.  Event organisers, Keith and Sue have a small selection of lost property including a rain coat! 

It is sunny and I am off to bed right now.

Thanks to all that came and supported the control.   

[blueskies]

Back at 3pm, somewhat shell-shocked but otherwise unscathed.
I'll write up a short report later, suffice to say it was character-building stuff out there today. Hope the rest of the riders stay safe and get back ok.

Many thanks to the organisers and helpers, we were well fed and watered all along the way, and the routesheet/gps files faultless. Thanks too to swisshat, we rode most of the way together and the company was vital especially during today's 'interesting' weather.

[mattc]

Here in the Land of 3 Towers, I'm 1 mile from stage1, and maybe 15 from the final leg. Its been mostly sunny if windy, but when a shower blows through it's been pretty vicious! So the full value riders should be having a _fairly_ bearable end to their journey ( If they haven't been too battered earlier).

My 2 worst ever 600s ended with about 5 hours of persistent rain, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Bon route!

[citoyen]

Finished at 5.39pm. Rain was more or less constant from midnight to 1pm, ranging from light drizzle to very heavy showers. Then the sun came out again, so I was more or less dry by the finish.

Good ride despite the weather. Pretty benign route (with a couple of nice stings in the tail). Excellent controls at Belbroughton, Chester and Upton Magna - huge thanks to all involved.

Spent much of the ride in the company of LWaB, whose good humour kept me sane in the long dark nighttime sections, and the long wet daytime ones.

Good yacf turnout - pleasure to meet you all, whether for the first time or not. My acquaintance with jsabine was brief as he had the misfortune to puncture after 6km. Chiz! And good to meet mattc in the flesh at last, especially as it turns out he's even hotter in real life than in his avatar.

Here's the sciencey bit:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/561831603

[Peter]

The bad weather didn't really arrive here in the Manchester area until the early hours but the wind preceded it by half a day or so.  Well done to everyone.

[HK]

We'll Citoyen I've spent many hours in LWaB company particularly at night and good humour isn't what comes to mind.

[Redlight]

And good to meet mattc in the flesh at last, especially as it turns out he's even hotter in real life than in his avatar.

 

[Somnolent]

Still 28 riders out on the road.
 

[Arry-R]

they had betting put a move on
 

[HK]

Please note I didn't ride this event because I wasn't up to riding. It's because of issues that have made me very uncomfortable riding with this particular organisation.

[Arry-R]

oh dear dear dear my dear.  Neville would have said not the place here for sour grapes my dear.
This is not good, not good at all!
and whatever would Rocco have said. ..ahhh what can I say....

 

[jsabine]

Well, I enjoyed that - in parts ...!

Up to Chester was largely fine, with magnificent weather, and brief company from citoyen (terminated by puncture) and a more extended tow from/chat with LWaB (also terminated by puncture - grr). Had a fairly miserable night section, with the dozies beginning to kick in as I approached Chester and then really taking effect after I'd left, even having had a couple of hours sleep. Naps in a couple of barns contributed to me taking something over five hours to get to Upton Magna, but from there to Belbroughton and Honeybourne went better and I seemed to find a new set of legs after the Domestic Fowl Trust cafe.

Controls, organisation, all seemed to work very well from my not-quite-newbie perspective¹ - there was food when I wanted it, beds when I needed them, even a refreshing shower part way through, not counting the many from the clouds. What's more, I'm a sucker for homemade cake, but I'm probably irrationally even more impressed by homemade sausage rolls ...

The route was grand, with some lovely views, pretty Cotswold villages and industrial icons, and surprisingly little traffic even on most of the unavoidable main roady bits. A bit of up and down, sure, but it's not that there were really *that* many hills - just that those around made their presence known in some reasonably intense doses.

Exchanges with blueskies and swiss hat were confined pretty much to hellos at the start before they vanished into the blue yonder, but chats with others passed the time, including fidgetbuzz - interrupted first by me dropping back to find a convenient barn, but then resumed at Chalgrove to discuss the unfortunate demise of *both* of his gear shifters. And I completely failed to recognise iddu despite the fact he's got a picture of me up there ^^^ (yeah, so I'm *completely* hidden under a blanket? So?), and did little more than grunt at Basil - apologies.

Yeah, I enjoyed it. Thanks as ever to Keef and the rest of the organising team, as well as to everyone who treated us (well, me anyway) so well at controls. Should we ask about plans for next or subsequent years - is a rejuvenated classic returning to the calendar? (Nah, too early.)




1: despite an extra-value effort on LEL, a miserable failure on the Mille Cymru and a more successful time on the Mile Failte, this is the first 600 I've entered.


(Oh, the parts I didn't enjoy - hindsight'll take care of them. I spent a substantial part of the Irish ride swearing that anything longer than a day out on the bike was misery and that I'd never do anything so silly again. Hmmph. Care to tell me why exactly I've got the AUK calendar open at the moment, wondering just how much I hate the Fens?)

[mattc]

We'll Citoyen I've spent many hours in LWaB company particularly at night and good humour isn't what comes to mind.

(It's not a certainty in daylight ...)

Did _any_ ladies start? I didn't see any, but I did miss the early start. VERY unusual on a 600 of this size 

[citoyen]

There were two, riding together, but I didn't see them at the start so I presume they were among the early départees.

First saw them at Chester (having remarked to my riding companions upon the lack of female riders not long before arriving there). Saw them again at Upton Magna, and then for a final time, sockless, at Honeybourne. They weren't riding particularly quickly so I guess they were just pushing through without sleep. Chapeau to them if that's the case.

It's disappointing that there wasn't more female participation. But the reasons for that and what to do about it are for another thread.